Wednesday, August 11, 2010

More forgotten reports and the effects of 8th edition

It seems the topic of forgotten event reports has become a regularity here at Bloghammer. Recently I attended Conclave here in Limerick for the WHFB tournament (a month ago at this rate, oops). Whereas I did actually write the report, I forgot to put it on the blog, however you can find it at here. Not ideal, but what can you do at this rate. Let's hope the next one gets posted on time aye :)

So 8th edition is now comfy and settled in as a stray dog in a old man's living room. What have I noticed? Where do I start?

First and foremost, 8th edition is way more fun than 7th edition. Best of all for me is being able to field actual Chaos Warriors in my Chaos Warriors army without setting myself a huge liability. It is a testament to the overall balance (at this time) that the term viable build has become much more widespread.

Movement is less figety and more fluid, which hopefully should quail the need for pointless rules debates on the last game of every tournament where one grouchy fella decides 1/10 of an inch is a wheel too far.

Magic has been fun and in my own experiences moderatly powerful, but certainly not the gorganzola whiffed pile of broken that every clown on the internet cries about. Some of the spell combos are interesting, and some of the miscasts have been hilarious. The new ability to throw 6 dice at a spell however have put a crux in the decision on the importance of the average dispel scroll; whereas these powerful spells can be more devastating now and thus need a quick scrolling, usually when you don't dispel a spell with dice anyway it's because they rolled that fabled double 6. So is the scroll nowa necessity or a formality? There's your question of the day, leavel comments please.

Combat is bloody, and bloody brilliant too (especially for my Knights >:D). The war of attrition style of battle takes a little time to get used to, but it fits right in with such a game as Warhammer and has given the player a little more to think about then point-click-destroy.

The new selection of magic items is a godsend, especially for armies such as Ogre Kingdoms, Wood Elves, and Beastmen who drastically needed a wider and better selection (especially regarding character protection).

Terrain is interactive and fun; what more can you ask for? Yes TLOS is a bitch, but with the 90 degree arc in WHFB, it becomes less of an issue. But living forest and angry statues are all good, and this is what the Warhammer world has become about. Combine this with the range of scenarios at your disposal and no two games will ever be the same.

This is all very brief I know, but I had to write 10 pages of this for an e-zine (more like I have to write; better get to it), and I wasn't going to do it again. Suffice it to say, 8th edition gets 5 thumbs up from me.